The watchwomen, 2025

Anna-Carien Goosen  

Artist Statement

Layered and figurative, my work portrays an ambiguous space where inner and outer worlds merge.  

My process weaves subconscious intuition with observation, tracing dreams and unspoken thoughts through small human gestures. Each painting holds multiple readings, revealed slowly over time. My art is less about inventing magic than revealing how it already inhabits the familiar. 

Focused on light, gesture, and texture, I take joy in the messy alchemy of oil paint and the ancient rootedness of charcoal. Drawing from Australian fauna and flora, these works become quiet sanctuaries where the eye can rest and the mind can wander.

Artist Bio

Anna-Carien Goosen is a Sydney-based artist. She developed her addiction to secretly sketching strangers while studying art in Pretoria, where she bagged a handsome ginger giant who doubles as her Art Fair pack mule. Together they live on the edge of bushland with three boisterous boys and a menagerie of wildlife scratching their noses through her garden before creeping into her paintings.

Anna-Carien has honed the skill of hanging art straight through numerous solo and group exhibitions. She's won the Naracoorte National Art Prize, South Africa's Living Portrait Master Competition, and appears on ABC's Australian Portrait Artist of the Year.